Child Abuse

Abstract

The paper covers the debate of nature versus nurture. Within the paper there is an introduction in which the hypothesis is given and a literature review that provides the reader with previous studies done with nature versus nurture. The methods, results, discussion and recommendations from the research study are also provided within the paper.

Introduction and literature review

The research question is: When comparing Nature verses Nurture in children which one is stronger than the other?

The hypothesis is: Nature has a stronger correlation than nurture when it comes to individual differences between males and females.

There is a big controversy between whether inherited genes or the environment influences and affect our personality, development, behavior, intelligence and ability. This controversy is most often recognized as the nature verses nurture conflict. Some people believe that it is strictly genes that affect our ways of life, others believe that it is the environment that affects us, and some believe that both of these influence us. A wide variety of characteristics have been considered in such debates, including personality, sexual orientation, gender identity, political orientation, intelligence, and propensity for violence or criminality (Wright, 1998).

Human nature is the range of human behaviors that is believed to be innate rather than learned. There is much debate over which behaviors are innate and which are learned, and whether or not this division applies equally to all individuals. Although "nurture" may have historically referred mainly to the care given to children by their parents, any environmental (not genetic) factor also would count as "nurture" in a contemporary nature versus nurture debate, including one's childhood friends, one's early experiences with television, and one's experience in the womb(Wright,1998). Indeed, a substantial source of environmental input to human nature may arise from external variations in prenatal development (Wright, 1998).

Either way, social scientists have been struggling for centuries deciding whether our personalities are born or made. Tests are done often on identical twins that were separated to see how they are influenced. In the past twenty years, it has been discovered that there is a genetic component to about every human trait and behavior (Pinker, 2002). However, genetic influence on traits and behavior is partial because genetics account on average for half of the variation of most traits (Pinker, 2002). Researchers are finding that the balance between genetic and environmental influences for certain traits change as people get older (Pinker, 2002). Also, people may react to others in a certain way because of a genetically influenced personality and others may choose certain experiences because they fit best with our instinctive preferences. This means that people's experiences may be influenced by genetic tendencies.

One-way researchers study the development of traits and behaviors is by measuring the influence of genetics through out ones life span, and it is found to be that the genetic influence on certain trait increase as people age (Pinker, 2002). A research study was done to see whether a trait would show up in a child if it was environmentally influenced or genetically influenced. In the study child was given more negative attention than another was, and it increased the chances of the child having depressive symptoms and anti-social behavior. But these symptoms disappeared when accounted for genetic influences and how parents treat their children (Wright, 1998).

All individuals in all different societies have similar facial grammar. Everyone smiles the same, and how we use our eyes to convey cognition or flirtatiousness is the same (Wright, 2002).

No success has ever been scientifically demonstrated in re-assigning an individual's handedness. Although an individual may change their external behavior (picking up scissors with the right and instead of the left, for instance), their internal inclination never changes. Even people who lose a limb, who physically do not possess the ability to pick up scissors with their left hand, will try to do so if they are 'left handed.' The percentage of left-handers in all cultures at all times remains constant (Pinker, 2002). Extensive, multi-decade research on identical twins confirms that their behavior is similar even when they are raised separately (Pinker, 2002).

Newborn babies, far too young to have been culturally influenced to do so, have measurable behaviors such as being more attracted to human faces than other shapes and having a preference for their mother's voice over any other voice (Wright, 1998). These facts suggest that some individual behaviors have a genetic basis; however, they do not prove that all behaviors have a genetic basis.

There are three types of gene/environment relations. The first one is called a passive correlation. It is to be explained as, for example, if a musical ability was genetic, and a child was passed a musical ability trait, than the child would most likely have musically inclined parents. The parents then would provide them with the genes and environment to promote the development of that ability (Pinker, 2002). The second one is called evocative. This happens when genetically distinct people evoke different reactions from peers and parents and others (Pinker, 2002). And the third association is called an active correlation. This is when people actively select experiences that fit with their genetically influenced preferences (Pinker, 2002). This doesn't mean that there are no environmental influences on behavior, because, for example, it is found to be that a loss of a parent during childhood promotes alcoholism in women (Pinker, 2002). It is shown that genetics play a big role on influences in people and society. Leadership is a big quality that everyone has and has a wide range of variations. Heritability is what researchers call 'the degree to which behavioral variations within a population can be accounted for by genes (Wright, 1998). Heritability is what is found to make up a lot of one's personality. For a while, scientists have been trying to draw a line between heredity and leadership also. There is no single leadership personality.

Even intelligence can go so far with leadership. It also involves how people make decisions, and how they give and carry out rules, how they are involved with a group, how they inspire and respect others. The list of characteristics is endless. Although genes seem to play as a map